Honest question. Do you think the GNOME project is as healthy today as it was, say, 4 years ago? Benjamin Otte explains that no, it isn't. GNOME lacks developers, goals, mindshare and users. The situation as he describes it, is a lot more dire than I personally thought.

Yes, but possible Gnome was already understaffed to pull through both efforts (desktop and mobile designs). Or they considered it not important. KDE made that distinction clear from the start (i.e. Plasma for desktop and PlasmaActive for mobile). Unfortunately for Gnome, ignoring that distinction is a bad idea.